by Lyn Gardner
She had been at Miss Pecksniff’s Academy for exactly a year and a day. She had kept her promise. It was time to go home to Campion’s.
Rose walked south over London Bridge through thick fog, people and animals looming out of it towards her like ghosts. One man was herding a small flock of sheep; a woman carried several squawking chickens in a wooden crate. Children ran about, begging; a chanter stood right in the middle of the bridge singing a popular song, and a tray man was hawking shrimps and cockles.
Out of habit, Rose scanned the faces of all the women who were walking towards her. She speculated that she and her mother could be passing each other at this very moment, completely unaware that they were tied by blood. She wondered whether her mother did the same, desperately searching for a resemblance in any of the girls who passed by, trying to find the daughter she had abandoned so long ago.
Rose knew she was being silly. She was still living where her mother had left her and she knew that Thomas would tell her immediately if anyone came looking for her. And besides, if her mother had wanted to find Rose, she would surely have come by now. It could only mean one of two things: either her mother didn’t care about her, or she was dead. Both options were unbearable.
Rose looked down into the cold, dark Thames and shivered. Maybe her desperate mother had left her at the music hall and then promptly thrown herself in the treacherous, seething river? Or maybe she was out there somewhere in the world with another little girl of her own who she loved and cherished, and she never gave a thought to the baby she had abandoned so long ago. Rose tried not to think about that because when she did she felt a sharp pain in her throat that no amount of swallowing could dislodge.
She hurried off along the river path, looking over the wall as she did so. It was low tide and the mudlarks were out, scratching along the murky shoreline and wading into the mud, some of them up to their thighs, looking for something – anything – of value to sell. The yellow fog was patchier by the river’s edge and some of the mudlark children spotted her, shouted her name and waved. She waved back, wishing she had a penny for each of them.
She ran across the road, ignoring the cries of the costermongers, coffee-stall owners and lark sellers, and dodged several barrows and carts that were clattering down the muddy street. She slipped into Hangman’s Alley. Campion’s Palace of Varieties and Wonders loomed out of the gathering gloom, its windows winking brightly as if welcoming her back.
She gave a little skip of excitement as she pushed open the gate to the yard and Ophelia, the theatre cat, looked up from cleaning her ears and padded over to weave in and out of Rose’s legs. In the yard, the Fabulous Flying Fongolis, a troupe of five acrobat brothers from Wapping, were practising their act, the youngest brother being tossed through the air like a log by his older siblings. Madame Dubonnet, the Famous Baritone, was warming up her voice. Rose found it amazing how such a low, deep sound came out of this young, frail woman. Rose grinned as she headed for the stage door, and Madame Dubonnet gave her a cheery wave as she passed.
“Look what the wind’s blown in; if it isn’t little Rosie back to try us all,” grinned Jem, a Campion’s regular, who was playing cards for pennies with some of the stagehands. “Come over here, Rosie, and bring me some luck.” Rose smiled and shook her head. Jem was always betting and always losing. He never learned. Tomorrow he’d be trying to get Thomas to advance him his wages.
O’Leary, the ancient actor whose first name had been mislaid somewhere between leaving Dublin and arriving at Campion’s, was slumped on a chair just inside the stage door. He was supposed to be on duty, but he was fast asleep and snoring, gin fumes wafting from his mouth with every exhalation. Rose took a step further into the welcoming, familiar fug of Campion’s. A couple of ballet dancers, thin, pinched-looking waifs with highly rouged cheeks, were practising steps by the edge of the stage and giggling. They eyed Rose with undisguised curiosity, and Rose realised she must look a strange sight: dressed like a lady but without either bonnet or gloves.
Rose smiled at them. Joe Blow, the clog-dancing cornet man, who was waiting to do his turn on the other side of the stage, saw her and bowed, blowing her a kiss. Rose grinned at the stagehands, who were busy trying to untangle the backcloth that was used for the melodrama The Perils of Priscilla. It must be on the bill tonight, which Rose thought was odd because although it was a real crowd-pleaser, Thomas found its endless stabbings and shootings tasteless and gory.
She walked to the edge of the stage where Peg Leg Tony and his Amazing Dancing Collies were performing. The collies were wearing little blue velvet jackets, and ruffs around their necks, and they were running around the stage in a circle of eight. In a minute they would be up and walking backwards on their hind legs. Any act involving animals was always a sure-fire hit in the music halls. Rose had seen lions and tigers performing at the Alhambra in Leicester Square but the big cats had seemed miserable behind the bars of their cages.
Rose took a step closer to the stage and was hit by a wall of heat coming from the gaslights. She looked beyond the flickering footlights out into the hazy auditorium. It was still early, but even so she was surprised by how sparse the crowd was. She frowned. Thomas hadn’t mentioned anything to her in his letters about business being bad. It must have taken a real downturn since Christmas.
She turned to go up the stairs to Thomas’s study when she was enveloped in a hug from behind and a voice said, “Lor, Rosie. It’s a treat to see yer.” Lottie, one of the ballet girls, was squeezing her so tight she could hardly breathe. She could smell the greasepaint on Lottie’s skin. Lottie had been dancing at Campion’s since she was fourteen. At nineteen she was considered an old trouper, sensible and capable too.
“Hello, Lots,” said Rose, beaming. “I missed you at Christmas. I was sorry to hear about your dad.”
“Ta. Poor Dad would ’ave ’ad a pauper’s funeral wiv nobody there at all if Thomas ’adn’t paid for it and given me the train fare back to Deal. But my, ain’t you a fine thing. You look and sound like a duchess, Rosie. Very la-di-da. That fancy school will make a proper lady out of you yet.”
“Never,” laughed Rose. “I’m home. For good.”
The orchestra struck up and Lottie jumped.
“Listen, Rosie, see yer after the cancan. We can catch up while them dratted collies are doing their second turn. Can yer Adam and Eve it? Them stupid dancing mutts are more popular than us girls!” Lottie pecked Rose’s cheek and turned towards the stage.
“See you later, Lots,” Rose called after her. “I’m going to say hello to Thomas.”
Lottie swung back round, an anxious expression on her face. “Wait, Rosie, you should know something…” But Rose had already started up the stairs and didn’t hear her.
She reached the door of Thomas’s office. Unusually, it was closed. Thomas always kept it open so that everyone at Campion’s, whether they were top of the bill or the lowliest stagehand, could talk to him at any time, and he could always get a sense of what was happening downstairs even if he was busy with paperwork. The sounds of the cancan wafted up the stairs. It was a sound that always made Rose want to dance.
Nose to nose with the closed office door she took a deep breath. She wasn’t looking forward to explaining what had happened at Miss Pecksniff’s. But she knew that he would listen to her side of the story and when he saw her raw, red hands he would believe she had been treated unjustly.
“Surprise!” she cried, pushing open the door with some force.
A strange sight met her eyes. Thomas was not alone in the room. There were four solemn-faced men seated in a circle, all dressed in black. For a moment Rose thought maybe someone had died. But then a fleeting image of vultures perched on rocks and waiting patiently to swoop on the body of a dying man came to mind. She saw Thomas’s shocked and anxious face.
“Rosie! What on earth are you doing here?” he asked.
It wasn’t quite the welcome she had expected. “I’ve come home to Campion’s,”
said Rose.
One of the men gave a thin, cold smile, the kind a wolf might make just before it eats you.
“You’d better enjoy it while you can then,” he said, “because it may not be home for long.”
“What does he mean?” demanded Rose, looking imploringly at Thomas.
He stood and put an arm around her shoulders. He seemed to have suddenly aged by at least twenty years.
“I’m so sorry, Rose. I never wanted you to find out this way. Thing is, I made some investments and used Campion’s as security. And now they’ve failed. It wouldn’t matter if business was good. But it’s not. Times are changing. We can’t compete with the swanky West End halls any more. The Victorious and the Finch have both gone under in recent months, and if business doesn’t improve so I can pay off my debts, these gentlemen from the bank will close Campion’s down.”
Rose felt as if she had been punched in the stomach.
“Rose, I promise I will do everything in my power to ensure that doesn’t happen.” Thomas sighed. “But I can’t promise that I’ll succeed. If business would just pick up we might stand a chance.”
From downstairs Rose heard the crowd laughing at something happening on stage. But instead of feeling cheered by it, it felt as if the world was laughing at her. She glared at the four black vultures.
“You won’t get your hands on Campion’s,” she cried. “I won’t let you!”
Then she turned and marched down the stairs before they could see her burst into furious tears.
Rose sat in the auditorium facing the stage. Eager to help save Campion’s, she’d offered to patch up some old costumes so they didn’t need to buy new ones. She loathed sewing. She’d been at it for hours and had just decided to reread The Winter’s Tale instead. It was one of Rose’s favourite plays, not least because she identified so with Perdita, whose name meant “the lost one”.
On stage, Lottie was rehearsing the ballet girls in a new dance with an Eastern theme that was all the rage. Lottie said they could use some of the costumes from the Aladdin pantomime they had staged the previous year so it would be cheap. High above the whirling dancers, Molly Blinder, who did acrobatic tricks while hanging by her teeth from a strap above the stage, was practising a new routine. Rose thought it looked agonising, but Molly said her act wasn’t half as painful as it appeared, and that you had to work with whatever gifts you’d been given, which in her case was freakishly strong teeth.
Thomas had asked everyone at Campion’s to come up with ideas to lure bigger audiences into the theatre. Lottie had suggested the new Eastern dance, preferably with added snake charmer. But another of the dancers, Tess, had squealed at the thought of having snakes in the building and Thomas said it might be quite hard to find a snake charmer in Southwark. Molly was keen on an elephant, until Thomas pointed out that finding an elephant might also be tricky, and it would be expensive to feed and impossible to fit through Campion’s doorway.
“No,” Rose had agreed thoughtfully, “but we could easily get a flock of sheep through it.”
“Sheep?” asked Thomas, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes,” said Rose. “Then we could do the sheep-shearing scene from The Winter’s Tale. I saw a load being herded across the bridge the other day. We could borrow a few for the evening. It’d be a big crowd-puller.”
“Ain’t sure me collie dogs and sheep would mix,” said Peg Leg Tony doubtfully.
“Ah, maybe not,” agreed Thomas, recalling a nasty incident when Ophelia the cat had pounced on stage when Tansy Quilp and her Miraculous Singing Canaries were performing. Rose, who hadn’t liked the canary act, said that Ophelia was clearly a very discerning critic.
A few days after the meeting, Peg Leg Tony said he’d had an offer from the Fortune in Hoxton and would be moving on at the end of the week. So Rose was determined to pursue The Winter’s Tale idea. How hard could it be to borrow a few sheep? She put down her copy of the play and was planning to go to the bridge and find a shepherd, when she heard Thomas calling.
“Hey, Rosie. Guess who’s here in my study?”
“Queen Victoria?”
“Better than that,” said Thomas. “Ned Dorset! And Gracie and little Freddie. Come up. We’re having tea and cakes. Ned Dorset and his family back in London is something to celebrate.”
Rose rushed up the stairs and straight into the arms of a tousle-haired young man wearing a Lincoln-green waistcoat.
“Whoa, Rose,” said Ned. “You nearly knocked me over!”
But Rose was already hugging Grace and then she picked up Freddie, a small cheerful boy of about seven, who had Ned’s colouring and eyes but Grace’s features.
Rose loved the Dorset family. Ned had arrived at Campion’s just a few weeks after Rose had been found on the doorstep. Once, Ned had told her that finding the little baby had given Thomas a reason to keep living.
Ned had done a magic act at Campion’s and played all the juvenile leads in the melodramas. Grace was a contortionist in a troupe of acrobats who had been passing through Campion’s on their way up north. Grace hadn’t gone with them. It was love at first sight and she and Ned had worked up an act together until Freddie had been born. But Ned’s heart was in the theatre. He dreamed of playing Hamlet and Macbeth. Thomas had been sad to see the little family go five years before, but he had been supportive of Ned’s eagerness to make his way in the theatre.
“So, Ned, my boy, how have you been?” asked Thomas.
Rose saw a quick look pass between Ned and Grace and she noted how threadbare their clothes were.
“Good,” said Ned, but not entirely convincingly.
Thomas frowned.
“He’s played Laertes in Hamlet and Sebastian in Twelfth Night, and he has been playing Edmund in King Lear at Oxford,” said Grace brightly.
“Good,” said Thomas encouragingly.
“Yes,” said Grace. “He had lovely reviews too, but then he threw up the part and said we had to come to London.”
Her tone made it clear she hadn’t understood, or agreed with, the decision.
Thomas turned to Ned. “So what brought you to London?”
“I had some urgent business I needed to attend to. I got a job as the villain in the panto at the Shaftesbury in Hackney,” said Ned, “but it folded early and the whole place has closed down.”
Thomas nodded grimly. “It’s a tough time for the small halls like us. We can’t compete with the spectacles at those fancy places up West.”
Grace looked embarrassed. “We’d heard things were difficult here, Thomas,” she said.
“Not so difficult that I can’t give you and Ned a job, Gracie, if you both want one,” said Thomas. “We’re trying to freshen things up. You and Ned would help. I’m negotiating for another new act too, one that’s not been seen in London before. Hope it will bring people in.”
“Your offer is generous, Thomas,” said Ned, “but if you, and my darling Grace and Freddie, could just bear with me for a week or two there’s something I need to sort out first.” A worried frown wrinkled his brow. “I’ve got to right the wrongs of the past before I look to my future.”
“Well, let’s have the tea and cakes,” said Thomas cheerfully, and for a while the chatter was all of the halls and theatre and who was playing which roles where, although Ned was rather quiet and occasionally Rose looked up and saw him staring at her pensively. Something seemed to be bothering him.
After tea, Rose took Freddie and Grace down into the yard so Freddie could play with Ophelia.
“Is everything all right with Ned?” asked Rose.
Grace shook her head. “There’s something eating him up. But he won’t tell me what it is, which makes me think it’s to do with his mysterious family. He’s always been a closed book as far as they’re concerned. I once asked him how he could really love me if he didn’t trust me enough to tell me about his past. I knew I’d hurt him but he said that he was only trying to keep me safe by not talking about his family.”
&
nbsp; “Maybe he was raised by a gang of murdering thieves and cutpurses,” said Rose, thinking that would be quite exciting.
“Well, they must be very hoity-toity cutpurses,” said Grace. “You can tell by the way he talks and behaves that he was raised a gentleman and had an education. I just wish he’d tell me why he ran out on that life.”
“I really hope he’s going to accept Thomas’s offer of work,” said Rose, who was delighted that Ned and his family might return to Campion’s but worried that Thomas would be further stretched financially.
“It’d be a big relief,” said Grace. “Where we’re living in Shoreditch is grim.” Then she added, “But at least it’s not the workhouse. An old friend of Ned’s asked him to visit one just a few days ago. It was over this way. Lor, but he said it was awful.”
“Who did he go to see?”
“A former chorus girl called Eliza something. Eliza Chowser? Think that was it. Said he didn’t know her himself but that she had worked at the Victorious some years back and had fallen on hard times. He said the workhouse was a whimpering, shivering kind of place.”
“All the more reason for you all to come back to Campion’s then,” said Rose cheerfully.
Grace nodded. “But it will be hard for Ned. I think he dreamed of returning to London in triumph. To the Lyceum or somewhere grand, and then inviting Thomas to come and see him. But he’s not so proud that he’d let Freddie and me starve. I don’t mind Shoreditch for myself. I love Ned. I’d follow him to hell and back if need be. But I’d like something better for Freddie, and I know that Ned does too.”
After that they’d gone back upstairs. As they entered the study, Thomas and Ned broke off talking, but not before Rose had heard Thomas say, “Why the sudden interest in the babies, Ned, boy? You know I’m not one for reminiscing.” His sad face was caught in the glow from the oil lamp. “There was so much loss around that time. Too much to bear.”